Dialogue Beyond Belief: The Role of Participation in Religious Practices as the Meeting Point for Muslim Christian Encounter

Introduction

The two world religions that boast the greatest number of adherents are undoubtedly Islam and Christianity. For centuries, they have interacted geopolitically, theologically and economically. At times peaceful, at times violent, their contact was hardly ever indifferent. As an academic field of research, Muslim-Christian relations only started to be seriously explored in the second half of the 20th century. Intentional, even government sponsored, opportunities for Muslims and Christians to interface and dialogue with one another has mushroomed in recent years. Although such efforts are commendable and need further development, they are inherently insufficient. Interactions that are limited to a mere rational meeting point of two religions with their own sets of beliefs, doctrines and authoritative sacred texts often overlook the crucial component of how these religions are put into practice by its adherents and what it actually means to them.

In this article I borrow from insights gained through the social scientific study of religion and my own ethnographic research, ¹ where it is necessary to go beyond beliefs, since, ‘knowing what a group believes provides insights only into one aspect of this complex phenomenon we call religion’ (Roberts and Yamane, 2012: 22). In the first part, I argue for the need to understand religion as a complex system, essentially made up of human beings who apply theoretical tenants to actualized practices. While this point may appear obvious, it is categorically underemphasized. Religion is commonly viewed through a reductionistic lens, which presumes the sufficiency of studying texts by which a religion can be abstracted into a homogenous and coherent system (Mittermaier, 2013: 279). This narrow and prescriptive strategy cannot account for the mosaic of religious expressions and the wide range of interpretive positions within each tradition itself. A more nuanced appreciation of the many shades within a particular religion is only possible through the study of the people who apply their faith in their daily lives.

As a result, in the second part, I draw parallels to Muslim-Christian relations, where a similar dynamic seems to inhibit a deeper mutual understanding. Conversations remain abstracted to doctrine and theory, while the dimension of lived faith by individual believers is largely overlooked. My aim is to highlight that when Islam and Christianity meet, it is in principle a meeting, ‘between people calling themselves Muslims and Christians’ (Thomas, 2018: 2). ² It is my position that much can be gained by relating to religious beliefs not only through a rational understanding of normative theology and doctrine, but by experiencing and participating in those religious practices that are meaningful to Muslim and Christian believers themselves. In order to substantiate my claim that such a strategy promises a concrete advancement of Muslim-Christian relations, I will conclude this discussion by providing two contemporary examples of this approach, located in Bosnia and Herzegovina. ³ The first is the world famous interreligious choir Pontanima, and the second is my own autoethnographic reflection as a Christian researcher participating in Muslim religious practices.

The Nature of Religion: Man as Homo Liturgicus

The problem with comprehending Islam and Christianity is the absence of a monolith, agreed upon and exhaustive object that can be narrowly demarcated and fully encompassed under the rubric of ‘Islam’ and ‘Christianity’. ⁴ Such broad terms presuppose two homogenous units, void of any independent agency of individuals and where doctrine and belief are essentially subjectified. This inevitably leads to misunderstanding, since religious dogma is often superseded by practical everyday life, the search for well-being, local culture and contextualized moral values (Henig, 2011: 239; Van Dijk and Bartels, 2012: 477). Living a good life and navigating through everyday difficulties often trumps rigid religious normatives. Moreover, the wide cultural diversity, contradictory perspectives and various shades of applying religious prescriptions leave a simplistic, one-dimensional view wanting. Consequently, it is crucial to recognize that there are multiple complexities and plural expressions of beliefs and practices by Muslim and Christian believers under the general umbrella of a universal religious system. The proclivity towards macro approaches to the study of religion is unsurprising, for it helps in establishing succinct definitions that are safely contained within strict boundaries. It ultimately ‘relies on shorthand characterizations of other religions’ (Clooney, 2010: 14). This strategy, however, inevitably falls short of achieving any real understanding (Ammerman, 2007b: 234). In addition to the weakness of generalizing religious systems, the second significant area of oversight is to relegate religion principally as a theoretical construct of rational ideas and beliefs rooted in established theology.

Borrowing from insights gained in sociological studies of religious communities, it is evident that belief is far more defined by practices than theological creeds (Kraft, 2013: 40). Cheetham, for example, highlights the importance of tradition, culture and sacred instructions for the proper performance of a religious event, saying that, ‘Liturgy is always seeking to make vivid the theological meaning of the tradition for its communities of faith’ (Cheetham, 2015: 553). Moreover, culture, society, religious institutions, long-established traditions and changing moral frameworks are all factors that likewise influence religious beliefs. Gellner (1999: 38) aptly expressed this, saying that it is, ‘a grievous mistake to argue back from what the texts say to what ordinary people think and believe’. As a result, the assumed rigidity of religion in theory breaks down on the level of practice and everyday life. Smith (2009: 47) accurately noted, ‘that the way we inhabit the world is not primarily as thinkers, or even believers, but as more affective, embodied creatures who make our way in the world more by feeling our way around it’. This embodiment of belief into concrete actions, which in turn shape and reshape beliefs themselves, is an indispensable reality that predicates the existence of any lasting religious system. As a result, a provisional bifurcation of religion at a minimum between beliefs and practices is helpful in attaining a more accurate analysis and understanding (Smart, 1973: 43–46; Smart, 1996). It is therefore imperative to go beyond the written texts and rational definitions about religion, and enter into the world of practised religion, its meaning and role in the lives of ordinary believers. Religion must be understood on its own terms, from the point of view of adherents themselves, rather than through abstracted, top-down definitions.

People do not generally believe in the veracity of their religious system because of a rational certitude regarding the reliability of every doctrinal position. Instead, they first and foremost belong to either Islam or Christianity, where each community identifies its members through the collective observance of prescribed religious practices. Belonging in turn provides identity, safety and consequently theological assurance. For instance, Bringa pointed this reality out in her groundbreaking ethnographic research in a Bosnian village, where Muslims and Christians had coexisted for centuries. There, the collective identity of each religious community was not predicated upon correct theology, but on ‘what people and members of the two communities did’ (Bringa, 1995: 78). These actions, regardless if they were theologically orthodox, were ‘Islamic’ or ‘Christian’ if the practitioners believed them to be. ⁵ Religious legitimization depended on subjective beliefs and the practical efficacy of these various sacred activities. Consequently, the dynamism by which religion is shaped, adjusted and reinterpreted rests partially in the domain of subjectivity and individual agency.

Ammerman (2007a: 12) articulates this essential point as follows: ‘religious traditions and autonomous individual choosers have created a dynamic religious culture in which official religious views and practices are shaped into everyday strategies of action’. In essence, religion is not static. On one hand, practitioners themselves act upon it in the process of implementation, and on the other hand, the existence of a prescribed, normative template informs the basic contours of proper religious action. In other words, attempting to understand Bringa’s example by confining it to mere theology and disregarding the context, the religious actors and the centrality of sacred practices would quickly reach its limit of explanatory power. Singh (2011: 46) likewise affirms the inherent limitation of analysing theology on its own, saying ‘that theologies need to be understood as provisional statements of truth and in need of ongoing review in different periods and contexts’. As a result, a comprehensive and intentionally contextual examination of theological normatives in their actual application in everyday life is demonstrably necessary. This makes an empirical study of practised religion in its natural environment paramount.

In order to achieve this goal, a minimum of two methodological strategies are necessary. The first is what sociologists call fieldwork (Chryssides and Geaves, 2014). The epistemological principal is that one must go to believers in order to get answers about their faith. Since religion is adapted by its practitioners in a given context, as I previously demonstrated, then studying it from the bottom up in its natural setting becomes methodologically essential (Creswell, 2008; Hogan et al., 2011). The environment in which religion takes place becomes relevant interpretive data for understanding. Besides focusing on locality, fieldwork also implies intentional interaction with practitioners. It is crucial for understanding a religious tradition to seek hermeneutical insights from actual believers themselves. Researching religion, according to Marranci (2008: 83), is fundamentally the study of human beings in all of their complexity. The individual essentially participates in shaping practices and ascribes religious meaning to his/her behaviour. Ignoring the relevance of this empirical fact can lead to a fictitious understanding of religion.

Consequently, a reliable contextualization of theology must take into account time and locality, but it also must include in-depth interaction and systematic conversation with members of a specific religious community (Bowen, 2012: 6). This approach does not render the rational analysis of theology, doctrine and beliefs as obsolete, but it simply aims to properly locate theoretical constructs in their embodied manifestation. Moreover, this positionality does not assume the sufficiency of previously obtained knowledge through static texts, but seeks to ascertain and appreciate rich insights gained from the perspective of those belonging to a particular religious tradition. It principally permits the voices of the other to be heard (Lindisfarne, 2008: 23). On its own, however, this strategy is likewise insufficient.

A conversation with members of a religious community, even if it occurs in its natural context, does not go far enough. As I previously illustrated, religion is not solely a set of propositional ideas that can be described and discussed. Rather, it is a multiplicity of embodied practices of these ideas through ritual and ordinary life. In order to understand some of the particular practices that carry such rich meanings, it is necessary to participate alongside practising religious communities in their religious performances, for ‘by virtue of their ritual activity and their particular places, [they] cannot be contained by the strict boundaries drawn by rational theological discourse’ (Cheetham, 2015: 546). The rich, personal experience of sharing in this liturgical dimension is the second essential methodological strategy that promises to generate deeper levels of understanding.

Understandably, this approach comes with its own set of challenges, since it requires vulnerability, active self-reflexivity, genuine curiosity, entering an unfamiliar world and, ultimately, sharing a piece of oneself (Hume and Mulcock, 2005). While difficult, it does not mean that participation requires holding the same values or religious convictions. It does mean, however, that it is necessary to participate in the religious performances and experiences of others to the degree of one’s own preference (Jones and Watt, 2010: 111), while retaining personal convictions and empathic objectivity. Not only does engaged participation help to produce a deeper appreciation of symbols and actions that have a paramount meaning for the participants engaging in the event, but this type of a hermeneutical posture also broadens previously held rigid theological categories and deficient interpretive frameworks. The benefits of participation and observation as a strategy for the attainment of potentially new layers of comprehension cannot be promoted enough.

In addition to the acquisition of multifaceted knowledge, one of the most significant and rather intimate effects of participation is that it can lead to personal transformation (Patton, 2015: 28). Sharing in the world of others has a critical role in reimagining and re-appreciating one’s own background, worldview or religious tradition. While this point is not overly emphasized in the literature, since good research assumes the necessity of distance and scientific objectivity, there is ample evidence that any honest engagement in the world of others will leave a lasting impact (Davies and Spencer, 2010; Madison, 2012). In my experience, to which I will turn at the end of this article, this impact is positive and enriching. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the mutual intersection on the level of experiencing a sacred event ultimately promotes trust and intimacy between the participants (Bernard, 2011: 266). Sharing lives, space and meaningful religious performances will likely break down many barriers. Friendships can emerge, as well as trust, appreciation, deeper understanding and new, unexpected insights – all elements earnestly sought after in concerted efforts of Muslim-Christian relations.

In conclusion, in this section I highlighted that religion extends beyond theoretical and static demarcations, and principally includes the practical, embodied dimension. Borrowing insights from the field of sociology, I suggested that discussing religion from a distance and attempting to rationally understand its theological precepts without a concrete engagement with people in their actual implementation of these religious prescriptions will likely prove deficient. My intention was not to provide an exhaustive overview of the study of religion from a sociological perspective, but merely to introduce some of its principal findings that have shed light on the nature of religion itself. I also aimed to present knowledge gained from methodological approaches to the study of religion. Here I highlighted that the study of religion is in essence the study of human beings. Within this anthropologically centred hermeneutic, it becomes essential to go to those areas where religion takes place and consult practitioners themselves. Additionally, it is necessary to enter into the world of practised religion through intentional participation and observation. I concluded by illustrating the advantages of such a multi-layered strategy, which takes beliefs and practices not as independent categories, but as interdependent. Having established the significance of practices and the strategic prominence of participation, I will now offer a broad review of Muslim-Christian relations and ways in which the aforementioned discussion might prove useful.

Muslim-Christian Relations: A Shared Intersection of Practised Religion

According to Cragg, Muslim-Christian relations were from the beginning characterized, ‘at best [by] mutual incomprehension, at worst [by] polemic’ (Cragg, 1991: 77). The broad record of past interactions during these early encounters indicates that Muslims and Christians predominantly engaged in polemical exchanges on theology, while the practical elements of each religion largely remained outside of any serious consideration (Keating, 2006: 3). In other words, any actual contact primarily occurred in the realm of top-down discussions, rhetorical dialogue and rational exchanges, while ignoring the arguably more important dimension of religion as it is expressed through religious practices. This approach has been beset by misunderstanding and misrepresentation, leaving a gloomy historical record of a perpetual tension in Muslim-Christian encounters both politically and apologetically (Goddard, 2000: 189). While there is some indication for occasional breakthroughs in communication, the predominant evidence suggests that there has been a perpetual impasse and persistent tension in Muslim Christian interaction, which has influenced attitudes until today (Bennett, 2008: 213; Van Gorder, 2008: 133). ⁶

Such a development is not entirely surprising, since both Muslims and Christians firmly believe in the veracity of their theological presuppositions. Even the most creative hermeneutics are unlikely to successfully overcome this perpetual theological impasse (Pratt et al., 2015). Although it is difficult to summarise such a vast field, the central topics that lead to unproductive, at times polemical debates usually centre around the same recurring themes regarding the fundamental nature of God, the personhood of God in Jesus Christ, the crucifixion and Scripture. As a rule, these discussions frequently return to their inevitable point of origin that ‘we just do not agree’. This is by no means surprising, since it is easily demonstrable that the two holy books, the Qur’an and the Bible, fundamentally and irreconcilably disagree. Even after centuries of attempts made to reconcile the diametrically opposed theological and doctrinal conclusions that directly arise from the Scriptures themselves, it appears that the incommensurability has in no way diminished. Both sides are still trying to prove the other belief system as false and there is an enormous amount of energy spent on what divides, rather than discovering areas that can be appreciated in both traditions. Trying to attain theological superiority by winning arguments often eclipses one’s ability to stop and discover the admirable in another person’s faith and religious practices. There are certainly multiple areas of enormous importance that are essentially void of fundamentally divisive elements. These commonalities include the understanding that God created the world, fashioned human beings to worship Him and revealed His perfect will in holy Scriptures. Although it is evident that theological discussions between Muslims and Christians have their natural limitations, by focusing on what unites, new opportunities can emerge from mutual respect and recognition. These are necessary prerequisites for potentially fruitful interreligious dialogue between Muslims and Christians.

In recent years, there has been a proliferation of Muslim-Christian encounters to engage in dialogue for better understanding. There are numerous worldwide initiatives from both Muslims and Christians for constructive encounters (Weller, 2018: 423–431). This particular strategic approach has become so widely popular that it has been included in the political agendas on a national and international scale. Nielsen views this enthusiasm critically and calls it, ‘an attempt at a takeover of Christian-Muslim dialogue by political interests’ (Nielsen, 2015: 424). While his disapproval deserves serious consideration and motivating factors need further examination, the support and positive development of a mutual interest for Muslims and Christians to engage in more constructive dialogue is on the whole encouraging. I will briefly mention three such examples with significant global influence.

The first of these initiatives is the Common Word movement, an effort by Muslim scholars to find common ground between Islam and Christianity, which ‘has clearly challenged the main churches nationally and internationally to strengthen their focus on the dialogue with Islam’ (Nielsen, 2015: 425). The second programme for interreligious dialogue is the Scriptural Reasoning project. It is intended for Muslims and Christians to come together, explore each other’s Scriptures, reflect and informally discuss the content (Jukko, 2015: 460). The third commendable initiative is the Building Bridges Seminar, which brings together internationally recognized Muslim and Christian scholars for seminars, public lectures, essays, theological dialogue and a number of mutual publication endeavours (Mosher, 2015: 512). These various strategies promoting interreligious dialogue and Muslim-Christian encounters are valuable attempts for sustainable progress, but unfortunately these efforts are largely limited to theologians, religious philosophers and specialists in the field.

Although some of the initiatives have spread beyond elite academic circles, they often circumvent ordinary believers and rarely impact their everyday lives. In addition to the hierarchical limitation, the second characteristic of this type of dialogical interchange reveals an imbalanced emphasis on speech, intellectual discussion and discourse predominantly about texts, beliefs and ideas. As I previously mentioned, conversations based around finding and redefining theological differences, even with the goal of discovering areas of consensus and agreement, is fundamentally limited in attaining understanding of the other. Innovative hermeneutics, albeit promising, will not suffice. These deficits are important and require the discovery of new strategic and more helpful pathways.

In addition to verbal dialogue, Jukko suggests three other promising ways of rapprochement: the dialogue of life, the dialogue of action and the dialogue of participation, where people share with one another in ‘their spiritual riches and experiences’ (Jukko, 2015: 456). Based on my previous discussion where I highlighted that religion was primarily concerned with everyday life and religious actions and experiences, Jukko’s recommendation to seek intersections in those particular areas makes a reassuring contribution. Sharing life, promoting concrete acts that can lead to peace and justice and exchanging the common testimony of religious experience promises to advance the characteristic stagnation of a mere cognitive exchange.

Merdjanova and Brodeur also affirm the importance of real action that goes beyond the domain of dialogue, suggesting that interreligious discourse ought to include, ‘all forms of human communication both through speech and shared activities that help mutual understanding and cooperation between different people who self-identify religiously’ (Merdjanova and Brodeur, 2009: 3). This definition is useful, for it emphasizes that religions are made up of people and that true understanding demands efforts that go beyond speech. Within this arguably more useful framework, the level of engagement ceases to be purely conversational, where truth claims are compared according to their greater validity and old boundary lines are re-cemented, but instead it offers new opportunities to appreciate human beings in all of their complexity and outside of purely theological demarcations. These aforementioned examples make it clear that there are authors who attempt to define meetings between Muslims and Christians in a broader sense by suggesting the need to go beyond a verbal exchange and incorporate concrete actions. This can, however, be taken even one step further.

As I previously demonstrated, understanding religion requires considering the point of view of those who apply it in their lives. Since practices lie at the very heart of religion, it becomes paramount to draw insights from such practices in order to gain reliable knowledge. The methodology that is suited to achieve this objective must go beyond observation and discussions about the event and include actual participation in the sacred rites themselves. It is through this shared, participatory experience that Christian-Muslim relations may profit in unexpected ways. Ipgrave (2015: 505) calls this approach ‘sacramental spirituality’, primarily referring to the Catholic tradition, and points out that it has been an overlooked, yet vital and useful dimension of Christian-Muslim interaction. Liturgy, sacraments, prayer, ordinary and extraordinary religious events and numerous other ritual performances all present vital opportunities for reciprocal, mutual participation in each other’s sacred worlds.

Cheetham affirms the positive potential of such an approach, suggesting that what is really necessary for constructive furtherance of Christian-Muslim relations is, ‘the inhabiting, the co-abiding that is expressed in terms of significant or meaningful places, certain kinds of ritual action and a greater instrumental use of liturgy’ (Cheetham, 2015: 545; emphasis in the original). This statement concurs with the previously outlined social scientific posture, which necessitates a grassroots strategy of sharing space and participating in religious performances in order to attain improved understanding. The benefits, according to Cheetham, are highly promising:

We might even go further and suggest that rituals and liturgies – by virtue of speaking to our ‘subjective and intersubjective states’ – can provide vehicles for engagement that escape strict theological embargoes. This presents a unique opportunity for the use of liturgical practices that take place in the presence of (and participation from) people of other faiths. (Cheetham, 2015: 546)

As illustrated earlier, the individual and collective experience of the religious performance does not require a shared theological reality and doctrinal agreement. The goal is not to achieve consensus, but to partake in sacred acts and learn to appreciate the world of others. Out of this respectful, Buberian I-Thou encounter of human beings searching for truth, mutual respect and appreciation are likely to result. It is a promising way for overcoming the long-established theological standstill. Experiencing the world of fellow human beings can ultimately lead to the benefit of truly comprehending the world from their perspective, and consequently enrich one’s own perspective with new, challenging and more nuanced understanding. In order to substantiate this point, I will now introduce two concrete examples from Muslim-Christian relations in Bosnia.

Practical Application: Two Contemporary Examples from Bosnia

Muslim-Christian coexistence in Bosnia has had a century long, occasionally tumultuous and even violent tradition. Due to complicated regional and political dynamics, which go beyond the scope of this article, a bloody War took place between 1992 and 1995, which ravaged this small country and polarized its people. The war was intentionally portrayed by those in power as a religious conflict between Islam and Christianity (Davis, 1996). Before the war, Muslims and Christians were generally characterized by low religiosity, privatized faith, peaceful coexistence and scarce religious observances. In recent years, however, there has been a revitalization of practices and a return of religion to the public sphere (Ibrahimpasic, 2012: 75–77). Although the population is still largely divided (Bougarel, 2018), this religious resurgence has resulted in a number of positive opportunities for official, as well as grassroots efforts towards interreligious reconciliation, dialogue and improved mutual understanding.

Several years ago, Merdjanova and Brodeur (2009) conducted a comprehensive study, mapping the recent development of interreligious relations in the Balkans in general and Bosnia in particular. While there have been numerous, primarily internationally sponsored efforts towards interreligious dialogue and reconciliation, Merdjanova and Brodeur’s (2009: 115–118) overall assessment was that much was still lacking. Although a number of meetings occurred, they followed the well-established interreligious blueprint where engagement between Muslims and Christians remained limited to conciliatory conversation and friendly doctrinal discussions. Real progress has been rather limited. Outside of a few rare exceptions, ⁷ there have been hardly any intentional efforts towards a mutual exploration of religious practices. A deliberate attempt at actually participating in such practices, according to my previous discussion, has effectively been absent. In light of this scarcity and the evident need for such efforts to be initiated, I will provide two relevant examples. I will first introduce the admirable grassroots initiative of the interreligious choir Pontanima. Although it is not an ideal example of Muslim-Christian interaction that occurs during an official religious or ritual occasion, there are still valuable lessons and key principles regarding the benefits of participation in the spiritual world of others that emerge. I conclude this section by offering a personal, self-reflexive account of my own experience in participating in the practices of another religious tradition.

Almost immediately after the war, while the country was still in tatters and people were learning again what it means to live in peace, Pontanima was founded by the Franciscan priest Ivo Marković, an internationally respected peacemaker who received numerous prestigious awards for his courageous efforts (Funk Deckard, 2012: 178). The name Pontanima is derived from the Latin, which implies a spiritual bridge, or bridge between souls (Andemicael, 2017: 95). The mission of the choir is to gather people from Muslim, Christian Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Jewish backgrounds in order to perform a fully interfaith repertoire of spiritual songs from these various traditions in order to achieve deeper understanding and mutual respect (Marković, 2007: 111). In essence, ‘Pontanima uses the music of the despised other to touch the depths of the listening human person, in an encounter that inspires wonder at the recognition of beauty beyond rationalistic control’ (Andemicael, 2017: 105). This strategy consequently surpasses a mere verbal, cognitive or dialogical approach by engaging the emotional and experiential dimension of human beings, who all participate in a communal event. Thus, a participatory experience in something sacred, albeit only remotely related to an officially sponsored religious event, has been proven to break down barriers and promote appreciation and understanding.

The positive role of the arts as a meeting point for people with differing religious backgrounds and community affiliations is a growing research field (Sköldberg et al., 2016). Robertson argues that it is the fundamental nature of music to transcend rational categories and cognitive communication which can generate enormous transformative power: ‘Music’s focus on sound symbols that are experienced pre-lingually lends itself to emotional or even spiritual sensations which are often difficult to express linguistically’ (Robertson, 2016: 254). In other words, similar to ritual practices, information is exchanged through an embodied performance of movement and sound with a religious content. It is not convincing based on doctrine, but ‘a conversion of the entire self, through the ear and the imagination to the heart … Precisely because it performs its theology, it defies static categories and strives to create something dynamically new’ (Andemicael, 2017: 107–108). Since the fundamental nature of religion includes its ritual enactment, new dynamic ways of interreligious communication are introduced as promising strategies for improved understanding.

While Pontanima does not engage in a purely ritual act of any established religion, it nevertheless serves as one successful example of the efficacy of combining sacred, theological content with deep emotions that are expressed through a performative, communal event. Robertson recorded the following report regarding the effectiveness of Pontanima’s strategy, where, ‘the embodied practice and transmission of tacit peaceful knowledge has demonstrably led to some positive social change by reducing some prejudices that choristers and audiences held about those from different cultural backgrounds’ (Robertson, 2016: 260). Andemicael corroborates the optimistic development among choir members, saying that, ‘most struggled initially to come to terms with the complex emotions aroused by the prospect of singing music from the faiths of their former enemies. Yet, the experience of being in the choir has been transformative for many’ (Andemicael, 2017: 102).

Moreover, the healing effect of music transcends the boundary of the choir to the audience itself. Regardless of the cultural, religious or national backgrounds of audience members, ‘music offers a way to bypass established thought patterns and emotional structures that undergird exclusivistic nationalist impulses’ (Andemicael, 2017: 105). While the audience does not participate in the full spectrum of the performance, they are likewise involved in the shared experience of the event. There are two fundamental principles that emerge from the Pontanima example. I have already discussed these principles from the perspective of a sociological approach to the study of religion. While these insights are generally overlooked, they can shed light on a crucial dimension in Muslim-Christian relations.

The first principle is the central role of a shared performative event. Here Muslims and Christians participate in a mutual, communal experience that can generate trust and understanding. Months of rehearsals, the wearing of uniforms and a successful performance that is well received by the audience who likewise co-participates in their own way are all important factors for a sense of group accomplishment, trust and belonging. The second principle is the fundamental nature of communication by means other than verbal dialogue and intellectual exchange. The experiential, emotional dimension clearly goes beyond language and strictly defined rational frameworks and engages the heart. The goal is not cerebral convincing, or proving one’s own set of beliefs as superior to another. Rather, the objective is to share similar experiences and emotions held in common by all human beings. This form of communication surpasses intellectually established impasses, and embraces a far more universal and fluid communicative design. Finally, the idea of Pontanima hints at one more important dimension.

The mutual performance of sacred liturgies not only results in an improved understanding of the other, it also directly leads to one’s own personal enrichment. By entering into the world of unfamiliar traditions, one’s own tradition begins to enjoy greater degrees of complexity and beauty. Ivo Marković summarizes this in the following insightful comment:

The song of our neighbor affects us and we receive it and grow through it. Likewise, our song becomes our neighbor’s heritage and impacts their growth. In that interwoven spirituality and in the discovery of our own reflection in the other, no one loses, but instead it is the only way to grow. (Andemicael, 2017: 107).

It is through this ‘interwoven spirituality’ that surprising benefits may emerge. This was precisely my experience of conducting long-term fieldwork among Bosnian Sufis.

The field of auto ethnography is well-established in social scientific research (Adams et al., 2015; Andrew, 2017). The claim is that the researcher is not neutral, but comes with their own biases and preconceived subjective ideas. Ongoing hermeneutic reflection, honest reflexivity and the development of reliable strategies for diminishing these inadequacies are all part and parcel of in-depth qualitative research. When I officially began my long-term ethnographic project in Bosnia among Sufi practitioners, I came as an overt researcher with a strong personal Christian commitment. Throughout the arduous process of intense fieldwork, I realized that I was not only trying to discover objective truth, but that I had several conscious and subconscious layers of personal agendas, fears and insecurities (Light, 2010: 173). My personal background, beliefs, experiences and culture all influenced my perception of the world. Although I studied Islam academically and had close Muslim friends, I nevertheless continuously found myself comparing doctrinal premises in a biased way. Although I knew that the validity of my research depended on letting my informants speak for themselves, I found it difficult to truly listen and not read my own experiences into those of others.

In addition to these inherent, internal challenges, there were additional demands in the field itself. Time spent with a variety of informants, sharing food, learning from their perspectives and experiencing emotional empathy for their joys and struggles led me to develop a preference for certain individuals and an aversion towards others. This clouded my thinking. Finally, due to my role as researcher with a different worldview and not being a member of these particular communities, my status as an outsider never really changed. My research objectives were simple: to gain trust, apply strategies to attain the maximum level of objectivity, participate to the degree necessary and solicit the highest quality of data from multiple sources. My personal positionality, however, was both an explicit and implicit sense of theological superiority. In other words, I expected to learn about them, but did not expect to learn something about myself or my own faith.

Emerson (2001: 131) was right in claiming that research is often as much personal as it is scientific. During my journey of intimately sharing life with my Sufi informants, many of whom would become my friends, a slow personal transformation began. Our relationships intersected not merely on the level of conversation and intellectual understanding, but through my participation in their religious performances. Taking part in these emotionally important, sacred experiences improved my standing in the community, diminished suspicion and increased trust. Moreover, it helped me to understand, or more importantly co-experience the significance of these rituals from the point of view of Sufi practitioners themselves. Discussing the theological significance of particular rituals was insufficient; actually doing them resulted in true understanding.

During the process, I realized how a purely intellectual approach to the study of religion is inevitably reductionistic and inadequate for understanding, since it fundamentally ignores the performative, emotional dimension that lies at the core of religion itself. Finally, on a personal level I not only gained friendships, authentic comprehension and rich experiences, but my personal faith and the manner in which I perceive the world were positively transformed. I experienced a revival in my Christian commitment, a humility regarding peripheral, rigidly assumed presuppositions and a rediscovery of the beauty of embodied liturgy and ritual. Although my experience is too limited for any broad generalizability, it does serve as one example where participation on the level of religious performances resulted in profound understanding, appreciation and personal transformation.

Conclusion

In this article, I focused on highlighting the necessity to view the study of religion as more than an examination of written texts and theological constructs. Religion is fundamentally comprised of human beings who implement doctrine into action. The embodied form of religion is fundamentally expressed by means of rituals and religious performances. I argued that it was this performative, emotional level of the heart that comprised one of the most important elements in people’s religious understanding. Consequently, it is necessary to include in the study of religion an anthropological dimension, as well as an investigation into how religion is practised. I then provided evidence that such an inquiry requires fieldwork, actual participation in ritual performances and direct conversation with believers themselves. After a brief overview of Muslim-Christian relations, I pointed out that the primary focus of the majority of interactions has prioritized the dialogical, intellectual dimension. An intentional effort to engage in the type of dialogue that includes mutually shared sacred experiences by means of participation in religious performances is largely absent. As a consequence, there has arguably been little measurable progress in Muslim-Christian relations.

I then considered two specific examples in the context of Bosnia, where the primary strategy for mutual understanding included participation in sacred action. In the case of the interreligious choir Pontanima, significant progress was demonstrated among choir members and audiences who shared in the listening and performing of liturgical and sacred songs from various religious traditions. Sharing space and performance through music established deeper levels of trust and ritual appreciation. My own personal experience of participation in Islamic rituals was likewise transformative. It helped me to gain deeper understanding and appreciation of another worldview, and it simultaneously enriched my own faith. In conclusion, I suggest that Muslim-Christian relations could potentially witness significant progress if dialogue also included an intentional participation in the embodied form of religion. It is through this ‘interwoven spirituality’ where theology intersects with sacred action, combined with an attitude of humble learning, that individuals can meet as human beings and share in each other’s religious lives. This strategy will not remove all obstacles, for differences are likely to remain, but it can provide new more contextualised pathways to learn about others and hence about oneself.